South Korea's Coast Guard and Navy jointly drove away a North Korean fishing boat entering the South's waters on Saturday.

The Coast Guard said on Saturday that the five-ton North Korean vessel was detected by a Navy surveillance plane at around 9 a.m. in waters 114 kilometers northeast of the easternmost islets of Dokdo.

The Coast Guard dispatched the one-thousand-500-ton patrol vessel to the site at 10:40 a.m. and identified the North Korean boat.

At around noon, the North Korean Navy contacted its South Korean counterpart via an inter-Korean communication channel and asked it to rescue the boat and send it to the North.

The maritime police tried to check how the boat crossed the maritime border and entered South Korean waters, but North Korean fishermen reportedly rejected the Coast Guard's help, saying their boat's engine was operational.

The boat was then forced to leave South Korean waters under the surveillance of the South's patrol vessel at around 8 p.m.